“Catching Fire” made over $3 million by Dec. 4, in the United States alone.
Aerin Johnson
Editor-In-Chief
“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” marked the largest November opening and the eighth highest domestic opening to date and grossed $158 million its opening weekend.
“Catching Fire” starts in the peaceful calm outside the fence guarding District 12. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) sits and remembers her time from the arena seen in the previous movie. She soon has to leave to prepare for the annual victory tour with fellow victor Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) with whom she faked a romantic relationship so that they could make it out of the arena alive.
President Snow (Donald Sutherland) knows this and tells Katniss that if she doesn’t make her relationship believable, he will kill her family and her closest friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) with whom she happens to be in a romantic relationship. As she goes through her victory tour, she does stir up some trouble through the districts but tries to make Peeta’s and her relationship look as real as possible.
Snow can still see some holes and turns to his new game maker Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) for advice. As the Quarter Quell marking 75th year of the Hunger Games approaches, some final decisions have to be made about who this year’s tributes will be as these games are different from the ordinary version with two tributes from each of the 12 districts. There is always a twist and for this Quarter Quell, the twist is that the tributes shall be chosen from the former victors of the Hunger Games.
As tributes are chosen and brought to the capital, Katniss and Peeta formulate a game plan on how to choose allies and stop the games. They and other tributes try to do what they can to stop the approaching games, but to no avail. Now they can only face what they hope won’t be their death.
The movie is a must see for fans of the books. It stays relatively close to the book and has amazing effects and scenery.
The arena in this film is simply amazing because people get to feel very close to the nature, but the dangers it holds seems more real than anyone would care imagine. During the movie, some baboons come out, and people can actually feel a little scared that the beasts might pop out of the screen.
Katniss’ style continues to stay on fire with her dresses in both the presenting of the tributes and her interview with Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci). Her attitude, especially when she shows off her skills to the sponsers, proves her to still be “The Girl on Fire.”
This movie is rated PG-13 and runs about 146 minutes.
